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Prahlad v. The State of Rajasthan

Criminal Appeal · 2018 INSC 1056Decided 14 Nov 2018
Criminal Appeal Nos. 1794-1796 of 2017
Justice N.V. Ramana · Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar · Justice M.R. Shah

Background

An 8-year-old girl, who trusted the accused as a family-like "uncle," was lured away with the promise of chocolates and was later found dead with injuries. The trial court convicted the accused of murder and child sexual assault under the POCSO Act and sentenced him to death; the Rajasthan High Court confirmed this on both the conviction and the death sentence.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found the circumstantial evidence (last-seen-together, witness testimony, and the accused's own silence under questioning) sufficient to sustain the murder conviction. However, it found the medical evidence did not support the sexual assault charge, the post-mortem showed no injury to the genital organs and no signs consistent with penetrative assault, so it acquitted the accused of the POCSO offence, giving him the benefit of the doubt. Because the sexual-assault conviction fell away and the accused had no criminal history and was young, the Court held this was not a "rarest of rare" case, and commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment for the murder conviction alone.

Lesson Learnt

A death sentence can be set aside on appeal if the evidence does not actually support all of the aggravating charges it was originally based on: courts must independently verify that medical/forensic evidence supports each specific charge before upholding the most severe convictions and sentences.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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